Four Decades of the Advanced Placement Program

Society for History Education
Four Decades of the Advanced Placement Program
Author(s): Eric Rothschild
Source: The History Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 2, Special Issue: Advanced Placement (Feb., 1999), pp.
175-206
Published by: Society for History Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/494439 .
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Four Decades of the Advanced PlacementProgram'
Eric Rothschild
Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, New York
"The college work was too easy. So I drank, and wasted time, and ran
down to New York.I didn't have to work so I didn't. My grades were
excellent and if I had bothered to work they would have been better.... I
disliked all the courses, knewnone of the professors, and didn't care to. It
was a game. I was seeing how little work I could do and still keep good
grades, and how muchI could drinkin the weeks before examperiod.... In
the second half of my sophomoreyear, I got an inspiring tutor and took
four fine courses. I started workingfor thefirst time in 18 months.I also
stopped drinking.Even now with the objectivityof two more years I am
seriously convinced that I was magnificentlyprepared at school and that
myfirst 3 termsat college were a total loss. "2
THE STUDENT WAS ONE of fifty-eight graduatesof Andover,Exeter
and Lawrenceville who respondedto a questionnairesent to seniors at
Harvard,Princetonand Yale in the fall of 1951. These recollections and
similar memories among other studentsplayed an importantrole in the
birthof advancedplacementa few years later.
In one sense, the United States has always had advancedplacement.
Even before 1776, a young immigrantto New York,AlexanderHamilton,
walked into King's College anddemandedthathe be allowed to complete
his undergraduatestudies in one year. For over a century,things changed
little. Throughoutthe 1800s college students moved at their own pace,
The History Teacher
Volume 32 Number2
February1999
? The Society for History Education
176
Eric Rothschild
behind in some subjects and advancedin others.3In the early twentieth
century, secondary education was democratizedand individual placement in colleges nearly disappeared.At the same time, the gap between
secondary and higher education broadened.It was not a problem that
many in the United States chose to address.
The Cold War and outbreakof the KoreanWar in June 1950 changed
all that, convincing many thatthe upgradingof Americaneducationwas
a matter of survival in a death struggle with communism. We needed
engineers and scientistsandpeople of talentin all areasif Americawas to
see another century. Top professionals increasingly needed graduate
work and graduateschools needed strongcollege graduates.If our high
schools weren't producing students of talent, America might rot at the
core. And if our best high schools and colleges were teaching overlapping materialthat would be bettertaughtquickly, then somehow we had
to speed up the process.
In 1951 the Ford Foundationrespondedto the crisis by creating the
Fund for the Advancementof Education(FAE). One of the Fund's early
initiatives, called "preinductionscholarships,"sent talentedhigh school
sophomoresto the Universityof Chicago, Columbia,Wisconsin or Yale
to ensure them two years of college before they turned eighteen and
became eligible for the draft.4School superintendentsand high school
principals were unhappy with the Fund's initiative. Losing their most
promisingstudentswas not seen as a patrioticduty. Indeed,the executive
secretary of the National Association of Secondary School Principals
called the preinduction scholarships "a bomb dropped on secondary
education."The metaphorwas not lost on the Fundfor the Advancement
of Education, which soon shifted its supportto other projects.5A May
1951 letter from John Kemper, Headmasterof Andover, to FAE President Clarence Faust suggested a change in direction: moving students
ahead in college afterthey had been admitted.Kemperwrote:
It appearsobviousthatschoolandcollegeprograms,
especiallyduringthe
the 14thgrade,havenotbeenplanned
important
yearsfromthe 11ththrough
as coherentwholes.Boysfromthebestindependent
schoolsoftenreportthat
theirearlycoursesincollegearerepetitious
anddull.Wearemuchconcerned
thatsomeof ourbestboysseemto loseinterestintheirworkduringtheirfirst
andsecondyearsof college.Itlooksasthoughthecountrymightnolongerbe
ableto affordthe wasteinvolvedin the transition
fromschoolto college,
especiallyforgiftedandwell-trained
boys.6
The subsequent reportrecognized that as schools which trained young
men, they had used gendered language, but that "our concern is with
basic principles of educationwhich have relevancefor both sexes."7
Four Decades of the Advanced PlacementProgram
177
The Fund bought into the projectand-led by Alan R. Blackmer,an
English teacherat Andover-administrators,professorsand teachersfrom
Harvard,Princeton,Yale, Andover,Exeter,andLawrencevillemet in October 1951 to devise a plan for its implementation.Their final committee
report,GeneralEducationin School and College:A CommitteeReportby
Members of the Faculties of Andover,Exeter, Lawrenceville,Harvard,
Princetonand Yale,publishedby HarvardUniversityPressin 1952, is a key
documentfor understandingthe birthof advancedplacement.Indeed,the
term "advancedplacement"first appearedon page 118 of thatreport.Not
surprisingly,given the elite characterof the institutionsinvolved,the introduction,while professinga moderateobjective,carrieda superiortone:
Thereis no intentin whatfollowsto call for reformof the wholeeducationalsystemforthe sakeof a relativelysmallgroupof students.We are
well awarethattherearemanysecondaryschoolsandcollegesto whom
theprinciplesandrecommendations
of thereportwill seemvisionaryand
utterlyunrelatedto localrealities.8
GeneralEducationin School and College was, in fact, unashamedlyelitist
throughout.One key passagewas brutallyfrank,in stating:"whilewe have
triedto outlinea programof studywhichwouldofferall studentsof college
calibera bettereducation,we have been particularlyconcernedabout the
superiorstudents[emphasisin original].This concernis partlythe resultof
ourbelief thatstandardscan be pulledup fromthe top moreeasily thanthey
can be pushed up from the bottom."In fleshing out their argument,the
authorslooked closely at the coursesthe independentschool studentswere
takingin college. Of 344 studentswhose recordswere examined,209 took
physics, chemistryor biology in college; almosthalf had takenthe beginners' course as college freshmen,which largelyduplicatedwhat they had
taken in high school.9 The conclusionof the reportpulled no punches.It
recommendedthat schools encourage more independentstudy for their
brightest seniors, and it advanced a seven-yearprogramand a specific
outlinefor advancedplacement.The reportnotedthatwiththe possibilityof
UniversalMilitaryTraining,accelerationmightbe of particularimport.The
authorsfurtherrecommended"a set of achievementexaminations...which
wouldenablethe colleges supportingtheseexaminationsto give an entering
studentadvancedplacementin a subjectlike, let us say, chemistry;or credit
for the prerequisiteto majoringin history....",0
The First Decade
By the time that General Education in School and College was published, a parallel project, also supportedby the Fund for the Advance-
178
Eric Rothschild
ment of Education,was well underway.Led by GordonKeith Chalmers,
President of Kenyon College, it attacked the same problem from a
different direction,focusing on the establishmentof descriptionsof college freshman-level courses that college faculty would accept even if
taughtin high schools.11Thereis some disagreementaboutdates of these
early activities, as described, respectively, by William H. Kornog, the
first executive directorof the School and College Study of Admission
with Advanced Standing(SACSAAS), andDavid A. Dudley, Directorof
the Advanced Placement Program in 1957-1958. This much is clear,
however. In late 1950 or 1951, President Chalmers and the Kenyon
faculty initiateddiscussions aboutthe optimumlengthof the undergraduate experience and requirementsfor graduation.In 1951, presidentsand/
or deans from eleven colleges met in Washington,DC, to explore the
Kenyon ideas further(Bowdoin, Brown, Carleton,Haverford,Kenyon,
M.I.T., Middlebury,Swarthmore,Wabash,Wesleyan, andWilliams). By
the spring of 1952, a twelfth college (Oberlin)joined the group.12
These college administratorsinvited twelve headmasters,principals
and superintendentsto a planning session in early 1952. Among the
principles on which all agreed were
...thatadmissionto collegewithadvancedstandingatthenormalcollegeenteringage afterhigh school graduationis more desirable,for many
of ablestudentsoutof highschoolatage 15/2 or
reasons,thanacceleration
16 andthattheadvancement
of Americaneducationdemandsthestrengthening of secondaryschools,especiallyin those divisionsin whichthe
ableststudentsareenrolled,andthatcollegescanandshouldgivea voteof
confidenceandencouragement
to secondaryschoolsthattryto establish
andmaintainhighstandards
of academicachievement.'3
Seven schools introducedpilot advanced courses immediately,and ten
more signed on by September1953. Later,anotherten "pioneerschools"
were added.14 How and why did these schools get involved? Looking
back after forty years, Ray Stephens, a mathematicsteacher and from
1956 to 1989 coordinatorof AdvancedPlacementat Newton High School,
remembersclearly that there was no decision at all. "Whenword came
out throughHarvardCollege, the thing had a momentumof its own," he
explains. "Parentswantedit and the faculty wanted it."'15
While each pilot school's experience in the initial years of advanced
placement was different, there were common approachesand common
problems.In every school the plan had to be introduced,course offerings
determined(oftenaccomplishedby expandingpre-existinghonorsclasses),
students selected, faculties involved. In some schools, invitations were
sent to parents and students to describe the program.In others, faculty
Four Decades of the Advanced PlacementProgram
179
representatives,parentsand studentsparticipatedin joint meetings. Some
schools sent out general invitationsto all students;others called only a
select few. Where honors classes did not exist and in some cases where
they did, student selection was made by departmentheads or based on
data such as I.Q. scores. Often the lists were submitted to guidance
counselors for their scrutiny. Faculty response to advanced placement
was mixed. Some teacherswere delighted with the idea from the outset,
while others--especially in schools in which classes were large-saw AP
as just anotherburdento be avoided, if possible.16
In the last two weeks of May 1954, the first common AP examinations
were administered.Onlycandidatesfromthe originaltwenty-sevenschools
were permittedto take the examination.The EducationalTesting Service
(ETS) was contractedby SACSAAS to administerexams in the experimental schools and, in a blind test, to comparethe high school students'
test results with those of freshmenin the twelve colleges participatingin
the program. The Final Report of College Admission with Advanced
Standing, issued by SACSAAS, made clear thatthe high school students
had acquittedthemselves very well. The reportgave a green light to press
on, and test leaderswere selected for ten disciplines:Biology, Chemistry,
English Composition, French, German,Latin, Literature,Mathematics,
Physics, and Spanish.17
Among the test committee chairmenof the first nationally administered examinations in 1956 was American history professor Charles R.
Keller of Williams College. A year earlier he had led a "revolt"against
the national exams in which historians had argued that high schools
should certify the excellence of their students and their college peers
should accept that accreditationon faith. Within a year, Keller was to
become one of the leading missionaries for AP. As he said, "I thought
things over, decided that since, no matterwhat, there was going to be a
historyexamination,I mightjust as well be on handto help workit out."'8
Thomas Mendenhallof Yale University was appointedChairmanof the
EuropeanHistory Test Committee.
The College Board, which assumed leadership of Advanced Placement following the final meeting of SACSAAS in the summerof 1995,
retainedETS to design and gradethe examinations,and settled a number
of issues relatedto theirfirst administration.No test could take more than
three hours-a commandmentnot brokenuntil forty years later.The fee
was set at $10 per examination.Before the tests were given in May 1956,
however, this policy was changed and studentswere allowed to take any
number of tests for their $10 fee.19 Each of the student exams came to
ETS with a "school report"attached,in which the AP teacherprovideda
description of his or her course and some commentary about the indi-
180
EricRothschild
vidual student.While the syllabus providedby the schools was of some
interest to the colleges, little stock was placed in the teacher's personal
commentary.20 On the surface,at least, therewas consistency from discipline to discipline in the gradingof these questions.Fromthe beginning,
a scale of 5 (High Honors) to 1 (Fail) was employed. The chief readerin
Literature had this comment about a score of 2: "The readers were
unanimously of the opinion that on this single piece of evidence, the
candidatewould perhapspass the first collegiate yearof English with a D
or conceivably, a low C; thathe clearly does not exhibit any evidence of
superiorityand should not be recommendedfor advancedplacement or
credit."21 A closer look at the results of the May 1955 examinations,
however, reveals some startlingdifferences in score distributionsamong
the disciplines. In the GermanListening Comprehensionexamination,
there were fourteen 5's, two 4's, two 3's, one 2, and one 1. In the
Literatureexamination, there were twenty-three5's, twenty-eight 4's,
eighty-six 3's, one hundred nineteen 2's, and fifty-nine l's. English
Composition, by way of contrast,was a killer: of 337 studentswho took
the Composition exam, there were no 5's and only three4's; there were
thirty-two3's, one hundredtwenty-one 2's, and one hundredeighty-one
1's.22
Perhapssome of the unevennessin thatfirst year's scoring can be tied
to the "cottage style" approachthat was taken to the reading.Separated
into different sites, the readersof each examinationdeveloped theirown
culture. English Composition, for example, was graded on the Maine
coast. William H. Brown of Andover wrote of those heady early days:
"Thereadingwas supposedto be held in Bowdoin.... [But]Bowdoin was
hot and stuffy; we thereforemoved the first day to some cabins out on
Harpswell overlooking MackerelCove which were opening for the season but were not yet occupied."HaroldMartin,Chief Readerof English
Composition, recalled: "We had sobriety, wit and abandon, we had
learning and levity, earnestnessand ease, cocksurenessand civility. The
only things we lacked, some have averred,was humility."Other early
reading sites included Harvard(German),Williams (Mathematics),and
Brown (French).23
In September 1955, CharlesR. Keller became the first directorof the
Advanced PlacementProgramfor the College Board. ETS ran the readings. The first ETS ProgramDirectorfor AdvancedPlacementwas John
R. Valley, who served in that position for a decade. The one-to-five
reportingscale continued under his leadership,but upon taking over in
1956, he found that the ways in which examinationscores were determined in the different subject areas were wildly idiosyncratic. Some
essays were being scored on a three-point scale, others on a hundred-
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
181
point scale. Top scores reached3,000.24 Valley developed a fifteen-point
scale which was frequentlyused, although one-to-nine and one-to-four
scales were employed in some disciplines. (A year later,all but Latinhad
adopted the fifteen-point scale.) In American history, each exam was
read three times to reach the fifteen-point score. The first time through,
the reader could award up to five points for factual thoroughness and
accuracy, the second time up to five points for the student's interpretation, and the final run-throughup to five points for presentation.Soon the
three different scores were lumpedinto one holistic score.25
The year 1956 markedthe beginning of a geographicscavenger hunt
by AdvancedPlacement:the searchfor the perfectreadingsite. The rapid
growth in the programmade each location at least partiallyobsolete as
soon as the kinkswere workedout.The 1956 readingsite was Westminster
Choir College in Princeton. In 1957, it shifted to Douglass College in
New Brunswick,New Jersey-where it remainedfor 1958. In 1959, the
caravanmoved to the PenningtonSchool in New Jersey,andthen in 1960
to Rider College, where the reading remainedfor over two decades.26
These early years also saw the introductionof data processing by machine in 1958 and, in English, the appearanceof the first Table Leaders
(leading groups of readers) in the same year. Also, in the late 1950s,
college studentswere selected by professorsin consultationwith ETS to
take the examinationsalong with high school studentsas a validitytest of
the AP exams.27
Reading and scoring of the examinationsrepresentedonly partof the
process; test scores had to be reportedto the colleges, which then had to
decide whetherto reject a candidate'swork or to accept the text results
for credit, advancedplacement,or some combinationof the two. The first
crop of studentsto take AP exams in 1954 went to eighty-two colleges.
The challenge was to persuadethese colleges and hundredsof others in
the United States to accept the program.In this effort therewere missionariesaplenty.Among the mostpassionatewas AP DirectorKeller.Twentyfive years later, he reflected on the obstacles he had faced, noting that
"College people were reluctantto believe that school teachers could do
something as well as-or almost as well as-they could." Still, armed
with the course descriptionsand the fact thatthree-quartersof the examinations would be in essay form which the colleges could evaluate for
themselves, he enjoyed some initial successes. (In these early years of the
program,ETS automaticallysent the already-scoredexaminationsof the
studentsto the colleges at which they plannedto study.)The responsesof
colleges were generallypositive, but in 1954, when the exam gradeswere
forwardedto the colleges of the studentswho had takenthe AP exams as
high school seniors, "students who entered the 12 participating colleges
182
EricRothschild
generally had a betterchance of being consideredfor advancedstanding
than did those who attendedothercolleges."28Anotherstrategythat was
designed to sell the AP programto the college audience-as well as to
interested secondary schools-was a series of conferences first held in
the summer of 1955. One such conference in English Composition and
Literaturewas held in late July at Bowdoin College. At the time, these
conferences representedthe only venue in which schools and colleges
met to discuss common educationalconcerns.29
The best selling point for AP was probablythe college performanceof
formerAP students.In the first groupto attendcollege in the fall of 1954,
thirty-twopercentfinished in the top one-sixthof theirclass at the end of
theirfreshmanyear, sixty-five percentwere in the middle two-thirds,and
only three percent were in the bottom one-sixth. To make sure that
colleges received such information,the College Boardcreated a special
committee on advancedplacement. In the 1957-1958 school year committee membersincluded:HaroldB. Whiteman,Jr.,Dean of Freshmenat
Yale University;RobertH. Pitt II, Dean of Admissions at the University
of Pennsylvania;Helen W. Randall,Dean of the College at Smith College; ClaraLudwig, Directorof Admissions at Mount Holyoke College;
John P. Netherton, Dean of Students at the University of Chicago; and
Rixford K. Snyder,Directorof Admissions at StanfordUniversity.30
The Final Report of the June 1955 Evaluating Conference of the
School and College Study looked ahead with optimism, but offered
suggestions for improvement.In the introductionto the report,Gordon
Chalmersadvancedfour propositions:
1. Collegeanduniversityfaculties,in consideringwhetherto join the
program,shouldobservethatit offersa positivewayforhighereducation
to helpschoolsto improveandstrengthen
theirwork.Whilestudentsand
teachersin the studyso farhavebeenonly slightlyinterestedin college
creditandalmostexclusivelyinterestedin enrichment
anda fasterpaceof
forcollegesdefinitelyto offercredit,forexperience
study,it is important
in the studyshows thatit is this publicpromiseto considersuccessful
candidatesfor collegecreditwhichhas movedschoolboardsandschool
trusteesto appropriate
thenecessaryfundsto makepossibletheorganizationof thenewcoursesat school.
2. Continuingstudyandrevisionof the syllabiandexaminations
will
be necessarybothto improveandto keepup to datethe descriptionsof
workin theseveralsubjects,andto this
acceptablecollegefreshman-level
end,notmerelythecommitteesof examinersin eachsubject,butcollege
in eachshouldbe engagedin a kindof runningdiscussion
correspondents
andreview.
3. To establishand improvethe college freshman-levelcoursesat
will
betweencollegeandschoolinstructors
school,extensiveinterchange
FourDecadesof theAdvanced
Placement
Program
183
continueto be necessary.Summersessionsandvisitationsto schoolsand
colleges shouldcontinueas a chief sourceof commonunderstanding
of whatthe reasonablestandard,
betweenschoolandcollege instructors
be.
of
new
should
and
the
courses
purpose, scope
4. If theprogramcontinuesto growat its presentrate,thecollegeswill
be obligedto studyanewtheproperpaceof anablestudentin college,for
they will be concernednot only with the conventionalcandidatefor
who have enhonors,but with an increasingnumberof undergraduates
teredcollegewitha headstart.31
Efforts to expandthe young AP programmet with some opposition,of
course. Some college professors expressed concern that advanced high
school courses would equate to only a fraction of a college course and
would leave a sort of "academicgaposis." As one college official explained, "Itis doubtfulthatanyone at the College is convinced thatthis is
a step in the right direction;they would rathersee strongerprep courses
for those thatcan take them ratherthanencroachmenton college work by
high schools."32In these early years, too, many colleges demanded a
higher level of performancefrom their advanced placement applicants
than they did of their own first-yearstudents.For instance, a numberof
colleges awarded"contingentcredit"to AP studentswho earneda score
of 3. If they received a grade of B or betterin an advancedcourse in the
same field, the credit was theirs;if they received less thana B, they were
out of luck.33Sometimes treatmentwas even worse. EdwardT. Wilcox,
AP directorat Harvardin the early years of the program,later recounted
horror stories about some Harvardprofessors who began their upperlevel classes by identifying the advanced placement students and then
tossing them out, to the amusement of the non-AP students who remained. A more subtle version of the same message was passed on by
some advisors who-on having an AP student do poorly in an upperlevel course--cursed the programthat sent innocent children to their
academic death.34The decision whetherto awardcollege credit or placement was not unimportant,but for many studentsthe issue never came
up. Contentwith the enrichmentthatthe AP courses had provided,many
never applied for either AP credit or advancement in college. From
Williams College, for example, Director of Admissions Fred Copeland
"was glad to reportthat at Williams as elsewhere there had been little
demandfor acceleration."'3
A review of College Board reports during the first decade of the
Advanced Placement program suggests that financial problems could
well have led to its early demise. From the start, the Fund for the
Advancement of Educationpaid the bill. Even after the College Board
took over the administrationof AP, the Fund helped out with grants of
184
Eric Rothschild
$25,000 and $50,000 in 1955 and 1956, respectively. Nonetheless, the
programremainedin the red and by 1958 had runup an annualdeficit of
$150,000.36 Clearly, something had to be done. One immediate action
was to raise the examinationfees to $8 per exam, with an additional$5
registrationfee. Another was to combine the Composition and English
Literatureexaminationsinto one, thus saving the costs of designing and
grading two exams.37 At least through the early sixties, recalled Paul
Holbo, Chief Reader in AmericanHistory from 1968 to 1971 and twotime chair of the test development committee, there was talk about
ending AP because of the financial drain it caused for the College
Board.38Within a few years, however, the financialproblemswhich had
threatenedto sink AP had vanished,as growingnumbersof studentstook
and paid for the examinations.Soon the programwas a source of monies
for other College Board enterprises.
Some creative efforts in the early years, though interesting, were
unsuccessful. One such was a 1963 attempt,supportedby the Fund for
the Advancement of Educationand the New York State EducationDepartment,to presentAP courses in intensive formaton television in the
New York City area. A calculus course taught by Frank Crippen of
Fordham University ran Monday through Friday in one-and-one-half
hour lessons from July 1 to August 22. James P. Shenton of Columbia
Universitytaughta televised Americanhistoryclass in two-hourlectures.
The total estimated participationin the two courses was 1,000 students.
On August 23, 1963, 149 studentstook the calculusexaminationand 132
took the historyexam for these televised courses.The gradesthey earned,
however, were lower on average than those earnedon similar examinations taken in the previousMay by full-yearAP students.Despite reports
that "most observersagreed that the television experimentwas successful," aftera detailedevaluationby ETS, the Fundfor the Advancementof
Educationdecided not to renew its grantfor the innovativecourses.39
Other aspects of the AP process also underwentrevision at this time.
The practiceof grantingcontingentcreditwherebya studenthadto earna
B in an advancedcourse in orderto receive ex-post facto AP creditbegan
to disappearin the early sixties. At the same time, ETS ceased its practice
of automatically forwarding all of the free-response questions to the
colleges. The original designers of AP had called for a profile of a
student's "intellectual curiosity, initiative and motivation, and social
maturityand emotional stability"to be forwardedwith the examination
to the college admittingthe student.This practice, too, faded from the
landscape.40Two earlypropheciesalso missed the mark.RichardPearson,
Executive Vice Presidentof the College Board, who deploredthe pressures on studentsto achieve on SATs, AchievementExams and gradesas
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
185
admission to the top colleges became more difficult, predictedthat advanced placementwould be "ahearteningandreassuringcounterpressure
to disturbingtrendsin the college admissionspicture."And David Dudley
predicted "two college tracts [sic] for the future, one of the traditional
four years, and one for a very small group of three years, Oxford and
Cambridgefashion."41
While the futurewas to hold some surprises,it was clear by 1965 that
the Advanced Placement Programwas a going concern. Carl Haag was
one year into a distinguishedcareeras ETS ProgramDirectorand Donald
H. Byerly had been appointedDirectorof the Reading.The nationalpress
seemed supportive,attendanceat AP teachers' conferences was on the
rise, and an importantbook, Slums and Suburbs, endorsed Advanced
Placement.In it, JamesB. Conantsaid that"Thesuccess of the Advanced
Placement Programin the last few years is one of the most encouraging
signs of real improvementin our educational system.... To my mind,
every high school oughtto striveto providethe opportunityfor Advanced
Placement in at least one subject, no matterhow few candidates there
may be."42
The Second Decade
Educationwas not immuneto the social andpolitical shocks of the late
1960s. Between 1964 and 1973, averageSAT mathematicsscoresdropped
twenty-one points and average verbalscores fell nearlytwice as far. The
new presidentof the College Board, Sidney P. Marland,Jr., appointeda
panel to study these declines. After exploring a numberof hypotheses,
the panel concludedthatmuch of the slippagecould be tracedto "changes
over the past 10 to 15 years in the standardsto which studentsat all levels
of education"were held.43As ProfessorWilliam R. Hochman of Colorado State University observed in 1970, "Only 14 percentof the nation's
secondary schools had students taking Advanced Placement Examinations in the Springof 1969, andover half of the schools thatdid had fewer
than ten students."44 These changes can be explained by a number of
educational and culturaltrends of the late sixties. Top-flight American
educationhad always been elitist, andthe democratictrendsof the sixties
called for bettereducationfor the many,ratherthanthe best educationfor
the few. Moreover,the rise of studentpolitical activism was paralleledby
students' participationin their own education-including calls for the
elimination of grades and grading. Formal examinations-especially
objective examinations or examinations with quantified scores-were
suspect. Rather,emphasis on individualizationin learningand independent study characterizedthe era.45AdvancedPlacementjust did not seem
186
EricRothschild
to fit into this new context. There was a formal examinationand there
were objective questions. Further,as Hochman observed in 1970, "Because there have not been as many black studentsin AP courses, some
people regardthe programas touched with...'institutional racism,' that
is, the very structureof the programresultsin an unintendedexclusion of
blacks."46Duringthese years, too, the numberof essays includingpornographicprose and attackingthe country,the schools, their teachers,AP,
the College Board, and/oreven the readersincreasedsharply.By 1973,
there was the first positive proof of cheating-in fifteen essays. And the
first four years of the 1970s saw a sharpdropin the rateof increaseof the
AP programitself. In 1973, the numberof examinationsgiven declined
six percent-the only year of decline in the forty-three years of the
Advanced PlacementProgram.47
Given the climate of the late sixties and early seventies, what is
remarkableis the resilience of the program. Why did it continue to
flourish? Patricia Lund Casserly, a senior research assistant at ETS,
conducted a study in 1966-1967 in which she asked fifty college freshmen and more than 350 othercollege studentswho had previously taken
AdvancedPlacementcourses aboutthe impactof theirAP experienceon
their college and high school lives. What came throughin those interviews was that AP classes enjoyed a sort of partialimmunity from the
storms of discontent. Many students still wanted to learn. One said, "I
fought my way in-went to the teacher,the principal,everybody. I was
very tired of learningnothing and wasting time in classes with kids who
didn't care about anything but being 16 and getting out of school."
Anothersaid, "I like workingwith kids of my ability or even more ability
[laughter] and maybe it's because it makes me work harder."A third
admitted,"I want to get the basics out of the way andget on in my field in
college. Otherwise I'll be an old man before I hang out my shingle." In
general, ambitiousstudentswere not disappointed.Overtwo-thirdsof the
students reportedtaking AP courses which hewed to the course outline
for AP and preparedthem for the examination itself. An addition ten
percent took enriched or honors classes which also preparedthem adequately.Only fifteen percentreportedtakingAP courses which were AP
in name only and left them holding an empty educational bag. The
remainder-five percent-either studied independentlyor took the examination blind.48About seventy percent of the Advanced Placement
students were trackedinto separatehomogeneous classes. Almost twothirds of the students in these AP classes expressed concern about the
"intellectual,social and personal implications of homogeneous grouping." Yet not one studentin the surveyreportedthathe or she would have
opted out of Advanced Placement. Perhaps another explanation for AP's
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
187
continuing popularity was the size of the classes. Most of the four
hundred students involved in the study took AP in classes of between
twelve and twenty students.49The additionof new courses is yet another
explanationfor the growth of AP duringits second decade. An examination in French language was introducedin May 1971. Course descriptions in Music and in Studio Art and the Historyof Art were publishedin
the same year. The first examinationsin these threesubjectswere offered
in May 1972.50
Advanced Placement examinations changed during this decade, as
well. Massive changes marked the AP exams in both European and
Americanhistory, reflecting seismic shifts in the content and practiceof
history instructionin the nation's colleges. Longtime AP ReaderBerky
Nelson of UCLA has offered anotherexplanation, suggesting that the
exam changed to level the playing field for young African-American
students by adding the Document Based Question (DBQ), which provided informationfor the studentsto manipulatein theiressay responseinformationthat might have been missing from their classroom experience.5' In American History, the essay portion of the examination had
remainedconstantfor several years priorto 1973; studentswere askedto
answer three out of ten essay questions.Now they were asked to respond
to two out of nine essay questions and were confrontedalso with a DBQ,
requiringthem to interpretand analyzedata.The first DBQ, for example,
included three graphsand a cartoonas well as eight otherdocumentsand
asked studentsto analyze the factorsthatinfluencedCongressto pass the
ImmigrationAct of 1924. Bright students loved the challenge, in large
partbecause they were being asked to do what historiansdo.
Europeanhistorywas not far behind.Indeed,changes which called for
an interdisciplinaryapproachto AP EuropeanHistory may have been
more profound than the changes in American History. Writing about
those changes in the fall of 1974, Mildred Alpern, laterchair of the test
development committee, claimed thatthe new syllabus "tacitlyendorses
a teaching/learningrevolution long overdue."Both the syllabus and the
examination emphasized the modem world and European interglobal
relationshipsand "outlineda thematicstructurereplacingthe chronological one."52The first Europeanhistory DBQ appearedin 1975. While it
clearly was an unintendedconsequenceof the change, young women did
better on the DBQ in both Americanand EuropeanHistory than young
men, partiallybalancingthe advantagethatmale studentshad enjoyed on
the multiple choice questions.
Near the end of the 1970s, the numberof studentstakingAP examinations began to rise sharply. One explanation for this change was the
practice of some schools of offering courses to underclassmen.Initially,
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Eric Rothschild
most schools had simply assumed that AP was a programfor seniors
only. In the late sixties and early seventies thatchanged. HarlanHanson
noted a slow but constant change as stronger schools became more
efficient in offering the program.Chemistryand Americanhistory were
the coursesin whichunderclassmenmostfrequentlystretchedtheirwings.53
In 1975, gains appearedin both the total numberof schools offering
AP and the total number of courses offered, both of which rose by
thirteenpercent.54This growthoccurreddespite fee increasesfor students
taking the exams. In 1968, registrationhad been raised to $6, with an
additional cost of $11 per exam, and in 1975 the cost rose to $20 per
exam.55In 1975, as well, the first programof fee reductionswas implemented for students who were strained financially by the cost of the
examinations. In this decade, too, schools were given the option of
purchasing reports on their candidates' performancein comparison to
national results (as long as there were five or more students taking a
particularexam).
In a few respects, AP remainedunchanged.Throughoutthe second
decade of the program,readersin all subjectscontinuedto meet at Rider
College in New Jersey.The essay readingsthemselves, of course, continued to be a happy combination of dogged labor, special friends, and
intellectualdiscourse. Interestingly,despite the growthin the numberof
exams-from just over 50,000 in 1966 to nearly 86,000 in 1975-the
total number of readers dropped from 521 in 1966 to 496 in 1975.56
Although clearly not the reason for it, the stability in the number of
readers ensured the continued camp-like quality of the reading. At the
same time, ETS moved to strengthenthe reliability of the reading. In
1972, it introducedthe ConsistencyIndex Number(CIN). Readerswere
asked to score booklets previously scored by anotherreaderand later in
the readingwere given a packetof ten exams which they themselves had
scored earlier. The closer the numbers assigned, the better the CIN.
Reader responses to this innovation were mixed.57Some broad social
changes that markedthe era, however, were reflected in the readings.In
1972, for example, RuthF. Smith of HofstraUniversitybecame the first
female Chief Reader.58Women readersand table leaders,however, were
still a very small minority.
A few problems persisted in the AP program.One chronic difficulty
was a shortagein funds. Creatingand scoring examinationsand running
subject conferences were expensive undertakings.While the program
was on much firmer financial footing during its second decade, the
College Board continued to monitor it closely. One casualty was the
summerconferences for teachers,which had taken place after the readings. In 1973, strapped for cash, the AP program changed to mini-
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
189
conferences, an idea begun in the late 1960s by the leadersof AP Physics.
Overall, however, the College Board remainedoptimistic aboutthe program. When Sidney P. Marland,Jr., took over as Presidentof the Board
in 1973, he called all of the organization'sadministrativeleadersto a getacquaintedmeeting at which each introducedhimself and said a word or
two about his work. When Harlan Hanson's turn came, Marland said,
"You can be quiet, Mr. Hanson. I know what you do. You are doing the
most importantthing the College Boardis doing.""59
The Third Decade
Between 1975 and 1985, AdvancedPlacementbecame a nationalprogramto a degree which even its most ferventsupportersin the early years
couldnot haveimagined.In 1976,3,937 schoolsparticipated
in AP;by 1985,
there were 6,720. In 1976, 75,651 studentstook 98,898 examinations;in
1985, a total of 205,650 studentstook 280,972 exams.60Whatmakes these
statisticsso extraordinary
is thatthe gains took place at a time when, for a
of
variety reasons,education-especially public education-was scanted.
Two reportswrittenin 1983,A Nationat RiskandHigh School,underscored
the troublein which Americaneducationfound itself. The formerreport,
producedby the NationalCommissionon Excellencein Education,pulled
no punches."OurNationis at risk,"it began.
in commerce,industry,science,and
Ouronce unchallenged
preeminence
the
technologicalinnovationis beingovertaken
bycompetitors
throughout
world.... The educationalfoundationsof oursocietyarepresentlybeing
erodedby a risingtide of mediocritythatthreatensourvery futureas a
Nationanda people....61
High School, subtitled A Report on Secondary Education in America,
was producedby the President of the CarnegieFoundationfor the Advancement of Teaching, Ernest L. Boyer. The Prologue to the report
announced,"thetime for renewingeducationhas arrived.... If we do not
seize this special moment, we will fail the coming generation and the
nation." The report went on to give a prescriptionfor reinvigorating
American secondary education. The section on Accelerating Students
began with a discussion of AdvancedPlacement.62
Not only nationalcommissions saw AdvancedPlacementin a positive
light. Perspectives, the Newsletter of the American Historical Association, introduceda new column, "AdvancedPlacementTeaching."Kelley
Hamm, a first-year European History Advanced Placement teacher at
ScarsdaleHigh School, wrote the opening essay in September1982.63In
August 1979, The AmericanSchool Board Journal published an article
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Eric Rothschild
entitled, "AdvancedPlacementWill Make You a Hero to College-Bound
Kids and Their Parents."64
Many "kids"did not have to be convinced.
The sequence of "stagflation"of the late 1970s, recession early in the
Reagan presidency,and opportunitiesin the mid-1980s createdan atmosphereof anxiety among high school students,who worriedabouthaving
the financial supportto make it throughcollege. Therefore,AP took on
added importancefor them.
There were also increasingnumbersof AP choices for the student.In
1977, Spanish language was added. In 1980, drawing was offered as a
second option in Studio Art, althoughthe basic requirementsfor Studio
Art remainedthe same. Fouryears later,ComputerScience arrived.New
courses increasedthe numberof studentstakingAP. So did the growthin
numbersof younger AP students,mostly from the same socioeconomic
statusas the originalcohortthathadtakenAP. (Interestingly,the younger
studentsgenerallydid betteron the AP exams thantheirolder siblings.)65
AP also began to reach numbersof studentsfrom urbanand ruralareas
who would not have consideredor even known aboutAP in earlieryears.
College BoardPresidentMarlandwrote an articlefor Today'sEducation
in the winter of 1976, in which he stated that AP was "an effective
instrumentfor serving gifted but socially disadvantagedstudents."He
noted that he had found this to be true in his years in the Pittsburgh
schools and suspected that "the same would be true in other inner-city
schools where pride in the program often helps urban school leaders
change negative stereotypes held by some parentsand segments of the
public."66
Near the end of AP's thirddecade, the College Boardproduceda film
to sell the program to these new students. The students' voices came
through clearly in this twenty-nine minute production, "A Chance to
Excel," which focused on four high schools: Mt. GreylockRegionalHigh
School (MA), WhitneyYoung High School (Chicago),andJohnMarshall
High School and Southside High School (both in San Antonio). Harlan
Hanson, appearing at the end of the film, delivered the punch line:
"Schools need somethingsolid thata youngstercan take along to college
ratherthan receiving earnest letters that say, 'John has done well in my
course, please place him ahead.'"67The score thatthe AP studentearned
on his or her exam was the "somethingsolid".towhich Hansonreferred.
A higherpercentageof studentstakingAP courses appearedto be taking
the AP exams. Several possible explanations were advanced for this
change. Teachers appealed to their students to take the examinations.
One student reported,"Ourteacherexplained that if we didn't take the
exam, she'd never get any feedbackon how she was teachingthe course."
Some studentsreceived advice from friendsand siblings in college about
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
191
the advantages of having AP credits, and some parents alerted their
children to the economic benefits. "Whenone young women was suffering pre-AP Examinationjitters,"ETS researcherPatriciaCasserlywrote,
"she reportedthatherfather,a logger, encouragedherto take all threeshe
was signed up for: 'I'd ratherbet on you, Jill, than a turnaroundin the
lumber industry."'Even the American School Board Journal told students, "If you are alreadyin AP courses, take the tests! Whose time are
you wasting?"68Many school boardstook their own advice and made it
mandatoryfor all studentstakingan AP courseto takethe AP examination.
The resultof these pressuresappearedin a numberof studies.In 1973, 72.9
percentof the studentstakingAdvancedPlacementtook only one examination before they graduated,while 17.9 percenttook two, 6.0 percenttook
three, 2.1 percenttook four, and a small fractiontook more thanfour. By
1984 the numbers were 65.5 percent, 21 percent, 8.1 percent, and 3.2
percent.Clearly,individualstudentswere takingmoreexams.69
As the numbersof exams swelled, dormitoryspace at the readingswas
squeezed.RiderCollegeremaineda readingsitethroughoutthethirddecade;
in 1980,Lawrencevillewas added,anda yearlater,TrentonStateCollege.A
profoundevent took place in 1977, when EuropeanhistoryChief Reader
RobertBlackey convincedETS thatcivilizationwould surviveif men and
women were allowedto stay in the samedormitories.70
Despite the sharp growth in Advanced Placement during its third
decade, a few chronic problems remained.Some teachers and schools,
for example, either directly or subtly urged selected studentsto duck the
exams in order to keep the teacher's and/orthe school's average scores
high. Often, too, studentschose to suppresstheir AP scores or declined
credit offered by their college so that they could repeat an introductory
course and presumablyget a high gradethe second time around.7'
Some changes in this era lessened pressureson the Advanced Placement Program.For example, changingculturalvalues made studentsless
concerned about the negative consequences of taking AP. Unlike their
predecessors in the sixties, who took AP with a certainamountof guilt,
seeing it as a vehicle of social exclusivity, students of the eighties
accepted its academic advantagesand got on with it.72At a time when A
Nation at Risk and High School were deploring the state of American
education,Advanced Placementwas having its greatestsuccess yet.
The Fourth Decade
In 1991, PresidentGeorge Bush convened a meeting of governorsand
issued a call for Americato rise to the challenge of securingfor its young
citizens a "world class" education by the year 2000. Advocating that
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Eric Rothschild
"testsandhigh standardsbe appliedto every studentin fourth,eighth, and
twelfth grades,"he establishedthe National EducationGoals Panel and
expressed his hope that he would be known as "the education president.""73
Clarion calls were not enough, however. Even when people
pressed for assessment of students or teachers, there was no general
agreement as to the natureof the tests, their role in education, or who
should administerthem. In Texas in 1992, for example, 8,000 students
failed the mathematicsproficiency test requiredunderthe Texas school
reform law. The State Board of Education respondedby lowering the
passing gradefrom sixty to fifty-five. When the public howled, the Board
reverseditself.74
Under President Bill Clinton, little changed. Clinton supportedthe
principles of "Goals 2000," which had been initiatedby Bush, and the
call for national standards-but on a voluntarybasis. A major test for
these standardsinvolved the writingof nationalstandardsfor both world
history and United States history.The new standardswere hammeredin
the Senate, however. By a ninety-nine-to-one vote, a "sense of the
Senate" resolution demandedthat any future standards"should have a
decent respect for the contributionsof Western civilization, and United
States history, ideas, and institutions, to the increase of freedom and
prosperityaroundthe world."75So, as the United States limped toward
adoptionof nationalstandards,concernsaboutfederalcontrol,the decentralized natureof Americaneducation, the commitmentto equal educational opportunity,and the "culturewars"made it appearthat-although
educationalimprovementwas on everybody'spolitical wish list-there it
would remain.
Donald Stewart,Presidentof the College Board,seized the momentin
a 1993 report,writing:
In a periodof continuedquestioningaboutthe qualityof Americansecof ourhigh schoolstudents,
ondaryeducationandthe accomplishments
the AdvancedPlacementProgramis nationallyacknowledged
as an educationalapproachthatis a superbmodelfor the nationto emulate.The
NationalEducationGoalsPanel,America2000, andthe New Standards
Projecthaveall praisedAP as a programthatworkson a nationalscale....
In addition,the U.S. Department
of Educationis using AP dataas an
indicatorin theannualreport-TheConditionof Education.76
Indeed, AP was highly successful during its fourth decade. AP courses
grew and changed and the groups reached by the program expanded
dramatically.In 1986, 7,201 schools had participatedin the program;in
1997, the number was 11,500. In 1986, 231,000 candidates had taken
319,224 exams. In 1994, these numbers were 458,945 and 701,000,
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
193
respectively. The sharpest gains occurred in the southwesternUnited
States, where the percentageincreasesin studentstakingthe exams were
in double digits almost every year.77
One explanationfor the growthnationwidewas AP's policy regarding
college curricula.At least every four years, the AP programconducts a
full-scale college curriculumsurvey involving up to 200 colleges and
universities. In this way, the program can keep abreast of changing
content and instructionalapproaches. Those changes can then be reflected in decisions about adding, subtractingor changing AP courses.
Similarly, AP course descriptions are reviewed and revised every two
years.78By 1995, AP had twenty-ninecourses andexaminationsin place.
Some were new. Government and politics, including both American
government and comparativegovernment, began in 1987. Economics,
both micro- and macro-economics,was initiatedin 1989, and psychology
in 1992. A course in statistics was introducedin 1997 and an environmental science course appearedin 1998. About the turn of the century,
there will be separate AP courses and exams in geography and world
history. Many of the AP courses had the same labels as in past years, but
they were not the same courses or the same exams. In the late 1980s, the
AP Biology Development Committee announcedthat it would publish
twelve laboratoryexercises and thatexperiencewith those labs would be
tested on the AP examinationin 1988 and subsequentexaminations.An
equally dramaticchange was the introductionof the graphingcalculator
into Advanced PlacementCalculus in 1995.
The College Board took advantage of new technology, as well.
"Videoconferencing"of teachers' conferences began in 1992 with teleconferences in calculus and government and politics. The positive response to these conferences resultedin a 1993 videoconferencein European historyand subsequentconferencesin computersciences andUnited
States history.79In 1998, a Statistics videoconference was held for the
first time, and computerscience, biology, and Spanishhad repeatperformances.
As the number of AP offerings continued to expand, so did the
program's reach. While Canada was the largest internationaluser of
AP-all eighteen of its majoruniversitieshave AP policies-forty-nine
other countries had studentsinvolved in the AP programby 1994, with
16,659 examinations being taken outside of the United States.80Two
factors account for these gains from a small beginning in 1981, when
overseas studentstook 2,720 exams. In the late 1980s, the Departmentof
Defense Dependent Schools (DoDDS) made a commitmentto the program,includinga very well attendedthree-dayworkshopin Bad Kissingen,
Germany, in 1989. Subsequently, week-long Summer Institutes were
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EricRothschild
held at the Max Weber villa in Heidelberg in 1993 and 1994. In 1994,
Also in 1993,
1,806 AP examinationswere taken by DoDDS students.8"
eighty-seven Germanuniversities decided to admit United States high
school graduateswho had scored a 3 or higheron the AP Germanexam
and three additionalsubjects, with no additionalexamination.Not surprisingly, that year saw a twenty-one percentincrease in the numberof
studentsin Germanywho took AP examinations.82
The energy for expandingthe AdvancedPlacementProgramhas often
come from local school systems, state legislatures,foundationsand professional organizations.The stories of a numberof local school districts
are worthexploring,but one seems especially revealingof the decade. In
March 1991, the Supervisorof Advanced PlacementPrograms,Walter
Lambert,a formermemberof the U.S. HistoryTest DevelopmentCommittee and table leader,wrote a letterto AP teachersaroundthe country,
asking them to identify exceptionalteacherswho might wish to teach AP
in his district (OklahomaCity). The letter included an Advanced Placement Teachers Salary SupplementPlan. In additionto off-contracttime
tutoringAP at $15 per hour for a maximumof threehours per week, an
AP teacherwould receive $100 for every score of 3 earnedby his or her
students,$200 for every 4, and $300 for every 5. The lettercontinued,
To encouragestudentsuccesson the AdvancedPlacementexaminations,
theDistrictinaugurated
a collegescholarship
basedonAPscores.
program
Studentswho receivea '5' on anyAP examwill receivea $300 college
scholarship,a '4' on anyAP examearnsthe studenta $200 scholarship,
anda '3' on anyAP exammeritsa $100collegescholarship.
It is believed
thatthisis thefirstscholarship
programof its kindin thenation.83
The scholarshipmoney was providedentirely by supportersof the program in the local business community.After the first year of this experiment, the numberof AP exams takenby OklahomaCity studentsjumped
by forty-five percentandthe numberof studentsreceivinga 3 or betteron
their exams increasedninety percent.When, a few years later, Lambert
and the superintendentArthurStellar left the districtto work in Boston,
however, the programlost supportand ultimatelycollapsed.84
State legislaturesincreasinglygave active supportto AdvancedPlacement. In the late 1980s, South Carolina was among the first to pass
legislation promotingAP participation,by requiringall of the state's high
schools to offer AP courses and its colleges and universities to accept
scores of 3 or better. At about the same time, Floridaprovidedfunds to
schools thatestablishedAP programsand,in turn,Floridaschool districts
made money available to its AP teachersfor use in their classes on the
basis of their students' scores. In 1995, Texas began reimbursingthe
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
195
exam fees to students who scored 3 or higher on their AP exams.85By
1994, Florida, Georgia, Indiana,Kentucky,North Carolina,Minnesota,
South Carolina,and the Districtof Columbiapaid all or partof students'
AP examinationfees. The effect was predictable.When states began to
pay the costs of AP exams, the number of students taking the exams
jumped by sixty to eighty percent. In addition to state supportfor the
examination expenses, by 1993 seventeen states were funding teacher
attendance at summer Advanced Placement Institutes. The District of
Columbia provided money to train AP teachers and West Virginia created a statewideAP center.86
Similarto the critical supportgiven by the FordFoundationduringthe
first years of the Advanced Placementprogram,the Mellon Foundation
and the Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation provided much-needed funding
duringthe late 1980s and early 1990s for schools and teacherswho were
hoping to use AdvancedPlacementas a vehicle to improvethe quality of
instruction.Startingin 1987, the Mellon Foundationoffered fellowships
to summerAP institutesfor teachersworking in districtswhose student
population was primarilyminority or economically disadvantaged.By
1994, 1,021 such teachers had benefited from these fellowships.87The
Macy Foundation's supportfor disadvantagedstudents began in 1980,
when it sponsoredAP programsin five ruralschools in Alabamaand two
schools in New York City.88
Professionalorganizationsalso workedclosely with the College Board
to ensure that changes in the profession were reflected in AP instruction
and examinations. In 1989, The Joint Council on Economic Education
developed an Advanced Placement InstructionalPackage that included
student workbooks based on the macro- and micro-economics outline
developed by the AP Economics Committee.The Math Association of
America participatedactively in changes in the calculus programthat
climaxed in 1995, the American Chemical Society pressed the College
Board for more laboratoryactivities in AP Chemistry,and the National
Council of GeographyEducation,the Association of AmericanGeographers, and the National GeographicSociety played importantroles in the
decision of the College Board to offer AP Geographyby the end of the
nineties.89
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Americans found a folk hero in
Jaime Escalante. In 1988, Escalante was the focus of a popularmovie,
"Standand Deliver," which capturedthe power of one person to make a
difference in the lives of young people. A math teacherat Garfield High
School in Los Angeles, Escalante believed in his Latino students so
strongly that the kids finally believed in themselves. In 1981, only
eighteen studentstook AP calculus at GarfieldHigh; by 1987, the num-
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EricRothschild
ber of studentsin Escalante'sand fellow teacherBenjaminJimenez's AP
classes had grown to 155. Less renowned than Escalante, but equally
significant, Principal Joe L. Arriaga of Southside High School in San
Antonio, Texas, led his studentsto similarlyimmensegains. With limited
funds, Arrriaga"changedthe mindset of its teachers and students"by
revising their schedules from the traditionalEnglish I, English II, and so
on, to English I pre-AP, English II pre-AP, etc. In the end, everyoneteachersand studentsalike-knew the expectationsof the school had of
them. Under Arriaga's leadership,Southside High School-a school in
which 70 percent of the school population was minority, mostly Hispanic-advanced from a situation in 1981 in which ten percent of the
studentswent to college to a rateof over sixty percentin 1994 (the year of
Arriaga's death).90
In the fourthdecade of AdvancedPlacement,the answer to the question, "Whois the AdvancedPlacementstudent?"has changed.In 1986, a
longitudinal study of AP students concluded that "The AP Students
were.... more likely to come from homes where the parentswere highly
educated or held prominentoccupations.In fact, prominentparentoccupations such as judge, surgeon,andcompanypresidentwere half againas
likely among the AP freshmen as among the non-AP." The typical AP
studentwas likely to come from a largeratherthansmall school andfrom
a school with a minorityenrollmentof fifteen to forty-ninepercent,rather
than fifty percent or more.91By 1998, the typical AP studentcould no
longer be so easily categorized.
Majorchanges in the AP populationbegan in the late 1980s. By 1988,
participationby minority studentshad increased 140 percentover 1983,
with a 32 percent jump between 1987 and 1988. By 1988, minority
students represented 19.5 percent of all U.S. students who took the
examinations.This trendhas an importantsocial effect.As RaulRodriguez,
a teacher of AP Spanish and AP United States history-who teaches
history in Spanish at the largely Hispanic Xaverian High School in
Brooklyn, New York-has observed, "It is automaticallyassumed that
white kids can do the work in school and minoritykids can't. With AP,
Hispanics see thatthey can do it too."92In a 1989 interviewpublishedin
Black Issues in Higher Education,Donald Stewartunderscoredthe importanceof these gains. "By using our AdvancedPlacementProgramto
raise the expectations of minority students and helping them achieve
higher goals," he said, "these schools are bringingmore minoritiesinto
professional and graduateschools. They are also producingsome of the
brainpowerthis nation needs to compete successfully in the world." In
computers,for example, 521 African-Americanstook the AP exams in
1988, comparedto only seventy-two the year before.93The increase in
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
197
numbersof African-American,Native American,Asian American, and
Hispanic AP studentscontinued into the 1990s. In 1994, such students
represented26.3 percent of those taking AP examinationsin the United
States. Between 1989 and 1994, the percentageof AP exams taken by
Black studentsrose from 3.7 to 4.3 percent;among Mexican Americans,
PuertoRicans, and Hispanics, from 5.2 to 7.3 percent;Asian Americans,
from 12.5 to 14.2 percent;and Native Americansand Inuits,from 0.3 to
0.5 percent.94
By the mid-1990s, half of the nation's high schools were participating
in the AdvancedPlacementProgram.In 1995, studentscompleted779,000
exams, with the numberof studentsdoublingbetween 1987 and 1994. In
the latter year, "approximatelyeleven AP Examinationswere given for
every one hundredU.S. secondaryschool juniors and seniors."Approximately seventy percent of these exams were taken by public school
students.On a per capita basis, however, private school studentstook a
little more than twice the numberof exams as their peers in the public
schools.95In congruencewith its efforts to involve all talentedstudentsin
the AP program,the College Boardin 1995 reducedthe examinationfee
for studentswith financialneed from $72 to $43. Thatpolicy, in addition
to the increased willingness of local school boards and states to pay for
the examinations, accounted in no small part for the sharp increase of
students in the program-and possibly for part of the increase in the
numbers of minority students. In addition, the Advanced Placement
Programintroduceda variety of testing proceduresto make it easier for
studentswith disabilities to take AP exams.96
The thousands of additional exams requiredincreasing numbers of
readers.For the first nationaltests in 1956, therewere eighty-one readers.
By 1986, this numberhad increasedto 1,162, and eleven years later, to
3,709. The average AP readerserves six years, a term of service that has
remainedrelativelyunchangedover the years. Given the age and longevity of readers,they have proved remarkablywilling to change with the
times. In 1993, English and one or two other examinationsmoved to a
"folderscan"methodof mechanizingthe reportingof AP scores. In 1995,
United States history did the same. The transitionwent smoothly; there
were few Ludditesin the crowd.As the numberof exams grew, it became
more difficult to find suitable institutionslarge enough to host the readings. From 1986 to 1995, a series of new 'homes"opened to the separate
disciplines. The readingmoved out of the Northeastand, in some cases,
away from college campuses and into hotels. During 1986 and 1987, the
readingsites remainedunchangedat RiderCollege and TrentonState. In
1988, the Somerset Hilton (Somerset, NJ) was added;Clemson University came aboardin 1989, the last year for Rider, and in 1990 and 1991,
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Eric Rothschild
the Somerset Marriottserved as an additionalAP site. TrinityUniversity
in San Antonio, Texas, hosted a large number of readers in 1992, in
addition to the two Somerset hotels, Trenton State, and Clemson. By
1993 and 1994, only the colleges and universities remained-Trenton
State, Clemson, and Trinity-and in 1995, the University of Maryland,
College Park,was added,and then in 1996, the Universityof Nebraska.97
As the numberof readersgrew, so did the numberof rumors.Readers
talked about moving West, having separatereadingsfor East and West
Coast readers,or even a "homework"kind of readingthatevoked images
of the early IndustrialRevolution.
In 1993, the College Boardproduceda small pamphlet,TheAdvanced
Placement Challenge: Providing Excellence and Equityfor the Future,
which warned administratorsand teachers against expecting too much,
too quickly when an AP programis first initiated.The pamphletunderscored the facts that an AP programtakes time to build and that the AP
experience-including an upgradedcurriculumand the genuine excitement about AP work-is more importantthan initial grades received by
students. Exceptional AP scores come in the wake of exceptional AP
classes. The pamphletnoted, "Whenpressuredfor high scores on tests,
teachers may discourage students from taking the national exams or
become highly selective when grantingadmissioninto AP. Consequently,
many academicallyable andhard-workingstudentscould be excluded."98
Perhaps because at least some schools heeded this warning,during the
fourth decade of Advanced Placementthe percentageof grades of 3 or
higherdecreasedslightly. In 1985, 67.2 percentof test-takersearned3, 4,
or 5; the comparablefigure in 1994 was 66.3 percent. Other possible
explanations include the addition of four new exams, on which the
average grades initially were lower, and, for several AP examinations,
the developmentof more demandingstandards,for example, the requirement in Biology that experience in new laboratorywork would be included in the examination.99However well or poorly their studentsperformed, schools could get a more accuratereadingof theirperformance.
Starting in 1986, schools automaticallyreceived their students' results
and a comparisonto the national performanceon the different parts of
each student's examinationfor all exams in which five or more of their
studentsparticipated.
For top students,AP apparentlyplayed an increasinglyimportantrole
in the college admissions process in the 1980s and 1990s. The journal
College & University published the results of a survey of admissions
officers in the fall of 1991. Among its findings was that "Fifty-eight
percentof the colleges in the samplereportedthatit had become progressively more difficult to be admittedwithoutAP or honorscoursework."'c?
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
199
Some scholarshave suggestedthatsince gradeinflationhas made rankin
class and GPA less meaningful,colleges were forced to turnto AP scores
as a more reliableindicator.Othershave suggestedthatthe rising relative
costs of highereducationhave driven studentsto AP to save money. The
latter explanation seems questionablebecause few AP students trigger
AP credits once in college. In 1986, for example, only three percent of
studentswho took AP graduatedfrom college in less than four years. In
the HarvardClass of 1995, 295 out of 1644 students took advanced
standing.101
The expansion of Advanced Placement Program in the 1980s and
1990s to Americanstudentswho in the past might not have even considered AP is significant. It was a type of expansion, however, that had
marked the programfrom its earliest days. Every decade of Advanced
Placement has left its own special signature.The transportationof AP
overseas was unique to the fourth decade of the program.For years,
American colleges and universities had broadened and enriched their
student population, and in some cases helped to balance the books, by
attractingable students from around the world. Now some American
studentswere using AP courses andcreditsas a kind of intellectualglobal
passport.AdvancedPlacementcreditsare now accepted,for example, by
universities in GreatBritain,Germany,and a numberof othercountries.
(In some, the B.A. is a three-yearprogram,in others the tuition is well
below Americancosts, and in a very few-such as Germany-there is no
tuition at all.) In any event, the Americanstudentabroad,with AP credits
in hand, is a phenomenon which will become more common in the
future.102
The other most significant change in AP duringthe 1980s and 1990s
has involved technology. Technologicalchange, of course, has been with
the programsince its beginning,but duringthe last decade those changes
have been so vast that they signal a qualitativedifference. The College
Board has pushed along this process. For example, in the late nineties, it
published "College Explorer,"guidance softwarewhich allows students
to identify a college's AP policies along with a host of other important
information.There are proposals under considerationto design a voice
response system, "AP ExplorerOn-Line,"which will provide additional
information to the student. More importantly,the teaching of AP has
been alteredby videodiscs, CD-Roms, and the like. The services thatAP
provides have likewise been upgradedby on-line communications.As
early as 1994, the College Board announced,"TheProgramhas recently
introducedan AP informationdatabase,called a gopher server, on the
Internet,the global computer network. The AP gopher was developed
with help from the Universityof Georgia,wherethe gopher 'resides."''03
200
EricRothschild
Thereis now a College Boardweb page:<http://www.collegeboard.org/ap/
Studentscan log on and,for a price,get DBQs andfree
html/indx001.html>.
response essays evaluatedin a short period of time. And, as mentioned
earlier,the entireprocessof the readingof AP examinationshas been made
moreefficientbecauseof the latestadvancesin technology.
Concluding Observations
Looking back over the forty-threeyears of the Advanced Placement
Program,it is clear thata numberof the concernsandjoys thatseemed to
be special in the 1980s and 1990s have been with the programsince its
birth. The opening up of AP to all comers in some schools and the
untrackingof AP in others representjust the latest round in the debate
about power and opportunityin America.If the world remainsa dangerous place where America's brighteststudentsmust be bettereducatedto
reach their full potential so that our country can survive, is it better or
worse to expandthe reachof AP? (Certainlythis questionresonateswith
those asked in the 1950s.) If it is better,arethereenough teacherscapable
of teaching AP courses? That question, too, has been with the AP
programsince the fifties. The present turnoverof experiencedteachers
and the shortageof talentedscience andmathematicsteachers,in particular, may make this problem especially acute in our time. An additional
issue that has long been with AdvancedPlacement-and with American
education in general-involves the lack of women in mathematicsand
the sciences. In the fifties it may have been a problemthathad no name;it
is a hot public topic today. Therehave been some gains over the decades,
but in the mid-1980s, three-fifthsof the studentstakingAP examinations
in English and foreign languageswere women, while only one out of four
studentstaking AP Physics or Chemistrywas a female. 04
It is estimated by Wade Currythat 45 percent of the studentsin AP
courses do not take AP examinations."05Since such informationis by its
naturedifficult to verify, it is hard to judge whetherthis has become a
more significant issue as the programhas expanded. In any event, all
majorreportson AdvancedPlacementthroughthe years have mentioned
it as a problem.
The most severe problem of all remains that of communicationbetween AP and the colleges and universities. Rumors about both "credit
inflation" in AP and the declining quality of AP students feed other
rumors.Unlike the days long gone when barely a dozen colleges were
involved, now 2,964 institutionsof highereducationparticipateand each
year more are added.These new participatinginstitutions-and many of
the old ones-need
"refresher" courses on AP standards and process.
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
201
Without such updates,every college administratoror professorbecomes
"theexpert"on AP, relying on rumorsor on the reportsfrom a colleague
who has participatedin a recent reading. In this situation, whether a
college or even a departmentaccepts a 3, 4, or 5 for creditis dependenton
happenstance.Unless this informationalgap is effectively addressed,the
AP-college connection will become more shaky.
What of the future?It is possible that economic factors may limit the
growth of Advanced Placement.As schools are squeezed by a lower tax
base, they may not be able to pay for the textbooks,the materials,and the
teacher trainingthat are essential to a strong program.As families and
studentsare squeezed,the costs of AP exams, notwithstandingreductions
for financially strappedstudents, may prove to be too high. Or, as the
costs of highereducationescalate, studentsmay decide thatcollege itself
is not for them from the beginning, and opt out of the fast track.On the
other hand, maybe studentswill consider AP to be a greatfinancial deal.
The picture is unclear. Four years ago, the late Al Shanker and the
AmericanFederationof Teachersissued a call for a nationalhigh school
exam. Both sides in the struggleover nationalstandardshave called for a
fair and scholarly curriculum.Each commission that is formed issues a
call for a standardof excellence for all students.The Advanced Placement Program is answering these calls. Given AP's elitist roots, its
founderswould be shocked-but probablydelighted.
Notes
1.
Portionsof this essay were previouslypublishedin College Board Review,Nos.
176/177, 1995, pp. 24-32.
2.
General Educationin School and College: A CommitteeReportby Membersof
the Faculties of Andover, Exeter, Lawrenceville,Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (Cam-
bridge,MA:Harvard
UniversityPress,1952),133-134.
3.
David A. Dudley,"TheBeginningsof the AdvancedPlacementProgram"
(Chicago: Illinois Instituteof Technology, December 1963): 3.
4.
They Wentto College Early (New York:Fund for the Advancementof Education, 1957), as quoted in John A. Valentine, "An Echo from the Past: The Advanced
PlacementProgram,"TheCollege Board and the School Curriculum(New York:College
EntranceExaminationBoard, 1987), 79.
5.
C. Winfield Scott and Clyde M. Hill, Public Education Under Criticism(New
York:PrenticeHall, 1954), 74; Valentine,TheCollege Boardand School Curriculum,80.
6.
General Education in School and College, 2.
7.
Ibid., 3.
8.
Ibid., 2, 118.
202
Eric Rothschild
9.
Ibid. 10, 13.
10. Ibid., 111, 118.
11. Valentine, The College Board and School Curriculum,81-82.
12. Dudley, "Beginningsof the AdvancedPlacementProgram,"10-11.
13. William H. Kornog, "The Advanced Placement Program:Reflections on its
Origins,"The College Board Review 115 (Spring 1980): 16.
14. Dudley, "Beginnings of the Advanced Placement Program,"13. The seven
initial participatingschools were Bronx High School of Science; CentralHigh School and
GermantownFriendsSchool (Philadelphia),EvanstonTownshipHigh School (Evanston,
IL); Horace MannSchool (New York);Newton High School (Newtonville, MA); and St.
Louis CountryDay School (St. Louis, MO). Of the first seventeen schools to offer such
pilot courses, six would be among the one hundredschools administeringthe greatest
numberof AdvancedPlacementexaminationsforty years later.
15. Author's conversationwith Ray Stephens,March8, 1995.
16. School and College Study of Admission with Advanced Standing,Announcement and Bulletin of Information(January1954): 80.
17. Ibid., 72; School and College Study of Admission with Advanced Standing,
Final Reportand Summaryof the June 1955 Evaluating Conferencesof the School and
College Study(March 1965): 5.
18. Jack Arbolino, "EarlyAP Leaders,"The College Board Review 115 (Spring
1980): 15.
19. "News of the College Board,"The College Board Review 27 (Fall 1955): 3.
20. RichardE. Peterson,"What'sReally Happeningin AdvancedPlacement,"The
College Board Review 58 (Winter 1955-56): 18.
21. School and College Study of Admission with Advanced Standing,Report of
TestingProgram (May 1955): 1.
22. Ibid., 5.
23. An Informal History of the AP Readings, 1956-76 (New York: College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1980), 11-15.
24. Ibid., 12.
25. Speech by Paul Holbo, San Antonio, Texas, June5, 1995.
26. An InformalHistory of the AP Readings, 1956-76, 21-22.
27. Dudley, "The Beginnings of the AdvancedPlacementProgram,"15.
28. CharlesR. Keller, "AP: Reflections of the First Director,"The College Board
Review 116 (Summer 1980): 23; PatriciaLundCasserly,AdvancedPlacementRevisited,
College BoardReportNo. 86-6 (New York:College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1986),
1; Valentine, The College Board and the School Curriculum,84.
29. Frank H. Bowles, Admission to College: A Perspectivefor the 1960's (New
York: College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1960), 29.
30. MarjorieOlsen, "What Happenedto Them in College," The College Board
Review 28 (1956): 7; Bowles, Admissionto College: A Perspectivefor the 1960's, 121.
31. School and College Study of Admissions with Advanced Standing, Final
Report(1955), 2.
32. Charles R. Keller, "Piercingthe Sheepskin Curtain,"The College Board Review 30 (1956): 21.; undatedtypescriptsummaryof responsesto survey of college actions
regardingAdvanced PlacementProgramresults,College Board Archives, New York.
33. Clyde Vroman, "Let's Get Together on Advanced Placement,"The College
Board Review 50 (Spring 1963): 50; Casserly,AdvancedPlacementRevisited, 11.
34. EdwardT. Wilcox, "SevenYearsof AdvancedPlacement,"TheCollege Board
Review 48 (Spring 1962): 30, 31.
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
203
35. School and College Study of Admissions with Advanced Standing, Final
Report, 9.
36. Valentine, The College Board and the School Curriculum,86; Dudley, "The
Beginnings of the AdvancedPlacementProgram,"22.
37. "Fee Rise Approved,"The College Board Review 35 (1958): 2; Dudley, "The
Beginnings of the Advanced PlacementProgram,"24,
38. Speech by Paul Holbo, San Antonio, June 5, 1995.
39. "Examinationsfor TV Courses,"The College Board Review 50 (Spring 1963):
3; "TV Courses Succeed," ibid. 51 (Fall 1963), 6, 7.
40. Casserly, Advanced Placement Revisited, 1, 11; Dudley, "The Beginnings of
the Advanced PlacementProgram,"15.
41. RichardPearson, "AdvancedPlacementProgram:OpportunitiesAhead," The
College Board Review 39 (Fall 1959): 24-25; Dudley, "TheBeginnings of the Advanced
Placement Program,"1.
42. An InformalHistory of the AP Readings, 1956-76, 25; Bowles, Admission to
College: A Perspectivefor the 1960's, 70; James B. Conant,Slums and Suburbs(New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1961), as quoted in "AdvancedPlacement Commended," The College Board Review 45 (Fall 1961): 7.
43. Valentine, The College Board and the School Curriculum,149, 150.
44. William R. Hochman,"AdvancedPlacement:Can It ChangeWith the Times?"
The College Board Review 77 (Fall 1970): 16.
45. Ibid., 17.
46. Ibid.
47. An InformalHistory of the AP Readings, 1956-76, 13, 26, 27, 29.
48. PatriciaLund Casserly, "WhatCollege StudentsSay About Advanced Placement- PartI," The College Board Review 69 (Fall 1968): 6, 7.
49. Ibid., 7, 6.
50. An InformalHistory of the AP Readings, 1956-76, 27.
51. Author's conversationwith Berky Nelson, June 5, 1996.
52. MildredAlpern,"AdvancedPlacementEuropeanHistory:Does Evolutionof a
Syllabus Mean Revolutionin the Classroom?"The College Board Review 93 (Fall 1974):
2.
53. Author's conversationwith HarlanHanson,April 22, 1995.
54. "Table of CandidateGrade Distributionsfor May 1984 Advanced Placement
Examinations,"7.
55. "1967-1968 Test Dates," The College Board Review62 (Winter1966-1967): 5.
56. "Advanced Placement Statistical Tables 1993-94," (New York: College Entrance Examination Board and Educational Testing Service, 1994), 1; An Informal
History of the AP Readings, 1956-76, 16.
57. Ibid., 28-29.
58. Ibid., 26.
59. Author'sconversationwith HarlanHanson, April 22, 1995.
60. "AdvancedPlacementStatisticalTables, 1993-94," 1.
61. A Nation at Risk(The NationalCommissionon Excellence in Education,1983),
5.
62. Ernest L. Boyer, High School: A Report on SecondaryEducation in America
(New York: Harper& Row, Publishers,1983), 1, 255.
63. Kelley Hamm,"TheFirstYear,"AHAPerspectives,Vol. 20, No. 6 (September
1982): 11, 12.
64. Joan B. Grady, "Advanced Placement Will Make You a Hero to College-
204
Eric Rothschild
Bound Kids and Their Parents," The American School Board Journal 166 (August
1979): 30-31.
65. Casserly,AdvancedPlacementRevisited, 1; "Tableof CandidateGradeDistributions for May 1984 AdvancedPlacementExaminations,"3.
66. Sidney P. Marland,Jr., "AdvancedPlacement,"Today's Education(JanuaryFebruary1976): 44.
67. Stefan Moore, producer,"A Chance to Excel" (New York: College Entrance
ExaminationBoard, 1984).
68. Casserly, Advanced Placement Revisited, 8, 9; Grady, "AdvancedPlacement
Will Make You a Hero to College-Bound Kids andTheir Parents,"31.
69. "Table of CandidateGrade Distributionsfor May 1984 Advanced Placement
Examinations,"9.
70. A Propos AP (New York: College EntranceExamination Board, 1995), 6;
speech by RobertBlackey, San Antonio, June 5, 1995.
71, Casserly,AdvancedPlacement Revisited,4.
72. Ibid., 8.
73. Bruce S. Cooper, "StandardsGo Global," The College Board Review 164
(1992): 20.
74. Ibid.
75. CongressionalRecord, 104thCong., ist sess., January18, 1995.
76. AdvancedPlacementProgram:ProgramPlan 1994-1996 (New York:College
EntranceExaminationBoard,January1993), 1.
77. "AdvancedPlacementProgramStatisticalTables, 1993-94" (New York: College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1994), 1, 6.
78.
1994 AP YearBook (New York:College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1994),
4; College and University Guide to the Advanced Placement Program (New York:
College EntranceExaminationBoardand EducationalTesting Service, 1994), 17.
79. AdvancedPlacementProgram:ProgramPlan 1994-1996, 21; author'sconversation with ArthurDoyle, May 1995.
80. 1994 AP YearBook, 13.
81. Ibid.; 1993 AP YearBook (New York: College EntranceExaminationBoard,
1993), 17-18.
82. 1994 AP YearBook, 14; 1993 AP YearBook, 18-19.
83. Letter from Walter Lambert and ArthurW. Steller, Oklahoma City Public
Schools, March 18, 1991.
84. Arthur W. Steller, "AP Program Offers Incentives to Lift Standards,"The
School Administrator(October 1996): 37; author'sconversationwith Walter Lambert,
June 5, 1998.
85. College and UniversityGuide to the AdvancedPlacement Program, 30; 1994
AP YearBook, 3.
86. Kit Lively, "MoreStates EncourageAdvancedPlacementCoursesfor College
Credit;Saving Money is One Goal," Chronicleof Higher Education39 (May 26, 1993):
22; 1993 AP YearBook, 16.
87. College and UniversityGuide to the AdvancedPlacement Program, 12; 1994
AP YearBook, 6.
88. EmanuelRaices and Angelica Hollins Braestrup,"An EducationalExperiment
Comes of Age," The College Board Review 161 (Fall 1991): 18, 20.
89
Robert J. Highsmith, "The Advanced Placement Program,"Journal of Economic Education20 (Winter 1989): 118; 1994 AP YearBook, 3.
90. Arriaga used several thousanddollars that the school earned from soft drink
Four Decades of the AdvancedPlacementProgram
205
concessions to pay the expenses of teachersto attendAP Instituteseach summer,andheld
AP dances to help studentspay test fees. TheAdvancedPlacement Challenge: Providing
Excellence and Equityfor the Future (New York: College EntranceExaminationBoard,
1993), 5, 9; The College Board Review (Winter 1995).
91. WarrenW. Willinghamand MargaretMorris,Four YearsLater:A Longitudinal Study of Advanced Placement Students in College (New York: College Entrance
ExaminationBoard, 1986), 11; CharlesH. Hammer,"AdvancedPlacementProgramsin
Public and PrivateSchools: Characteristicsof Schools andProgramOfferings, 1984-86"
(Washington,DC: National Centerfor EducationStatistics, U.S. Departmentof Education, July 1990), iii.
92. Beverly T. Watkins, "Participationof Minority Students Rises 32 Pct. in
Advanced-PlacementTests: Many Score High," The Chronicle of Higher Education
XXXV, No. 16 (December 14, 1988): 1, 26.
93. Ed Wiley III, "Advanced Placement Could Spell Benefits for Minorities,"
Black Issues in Higher EducationV, No. 21 (January19, 1989): 1, 15.
94. 1994 AP YearBook, 13, 15.
95. ETSDevelopments(Princeton,NJ: EducationalTesting Service, Spring 1995):
8; author'sconversationwith Wade Curryand Phil Arbolino,April 21, 1995.
96. Bulletinfor Studentsand Parents (New York: College EntranceExamination
Board, 1995), 14, 16.
97. A Propos AP, 6.
98.
TheAdvancedPlacement Challenge, 12-13. A second, somewhat relatedconcern has been expressed by Harold Howe, one of the Advanced Placement Program's
founders. "Thereis some tendency,"Howe commentedin 1995, "to have the classroom
emphasizethe test insteadof having a really interestingcourse.Teacherswho fall for that,
tend to diminish the program."He added that "it would be surprising if it hadn't
happened."Author's conversationwith HaroldHowe, April 21, 1995.
99. "Advanced Placement Program Statistical Tables 1993-1994" (New York:
College EntranceExaminationBoard, 1994), 25; College and UniversityGuide to the
AdvancedPlacement Program, 14.
100. Norman Edward Herr, "Perspectivesand Policies of UndergraduateAdmissions CommitteesRegardingAdvancedPlacementand HonorsCoursework,"College &
University(Fall 1991): 49.
101. Highsmith, "The Advanced Placement Program,"117; author's conversation
with CarolThorne,April 21, 1995.
102. Clayton W. Lewis, "An Educationfor the Global Marketplace,"The College
Board Review 171 (Spring 1994): 12-17.
103. AdvancedPlacement Program:Program Plan 1994-96, 22, 10; 1994 AP Year
Book, 18.
104. Willinghamand Morris,Four YearsLater, 24.
105. Speech by Wade Curry,San Antonio, June 5, 1998.
206
Eric Rothschild
APPENDIX
I
Advanced Placement Information
Year
Exams
1952-54
1954-55
1955-56
1956-57
1957-58
1958-59
1959-60
1960-61
959
1,522
2,199
3,772
6,800
8,265
14,158
17,603
Subjects
10
11
13
14
14
13
13
13
1961-62
21,451
13
1962-63
28,762
13
1963-64
37,829
12
1964-65
1965-66
1966-67
1967-68
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72
1972-73
1973-74
1974-75
1975-76
1976-77
1977-78
1978-79
1979-80
1980-81
1981-82
1982-83
1983-84
1984-85
1985-86
1986-87
1987-88
1988-89
1989-90
1990-91
1991-92
1992-93
1993-94
1994-95
1995-96
1996-97
1997-98
45,110
50,101
54,812
60,674
69,418
71,495
74,409
75,199
70,651
79,036
85,786
98,898
108,870
122,561
139,544
160,214
178,159
188,933
211,160
239,666
280,972
319,224
369,207
424,844
463,664
490,299
535,186
580,143
639,385
701,108
785,712
843,423
921,601
1,016,657
12
12
12
12
16
16
16
19
19
18
18
18
19
20
20
23
23
23
22
23
23
23
25
26
28
28
28
28
28
28
28
28
30
31
US
History
3%or
Higher
207
424
815
1,345
2,057
2,664
49.0
67.0
67.0
73.2
61.7
62.8
-
-
European
History
-
3%or
Higher
-
59
130
242
416
874
1,106
76.0
76.0
63.0
63.4
60.8
62.0
61.8
3,593
64.7
1,374
4,952
64.3
1,672
63.0
6,683
70.2
2,189
61.7
7,811
8,916
8,943
10,608
11,837
12,059
12,695
12,964
12,720
14,331
16,068
18,718
21,325
24,444
28,222
32,099
35,999
38,286
43,844
49,939
58,932
67,329
76,509
82,842
88,603
93,237
99,364
105,806
114,541
124,274
133,268
141,945
150,340
161,979
64.4
64.0
65.0
69.0
69.0
65.0
69.0
61.0
64.3
64.9
67.0
67.6
68.2
70.2
67.3
67.1
66.4
65.5
66.7
66.1
64.8
66.1
60.9
65.6
54.2
54.7
54.0
56.3
53.6
54.4
50.5
55.9
54.7
53.8
2,418
2,894
3,236
3,346
3,562
3,558
3,521
3,700
3,511
3,956
4,380
5,283
5,359
5,935
6,961
8,092
9,270
9,970
11,513
12,609
15,304
18,095
19,844
21,528
23,037
24,490
26,554
28,008
30,486
32,923
36,280
39,523
43,170
48,298
65.7
61.0
56.0
63.0
65.0
65.0
67.0
73.0
76.2
77.2
76.6
76.0
75.6
78.0
74.5
73.4
73.3
70.6
73.2
73.1
73.8
71.9
74.7
70.1
73.4
74.4
69.2
75.0
70.9
73.8
71.6
71.0
74.0
71.6